Patient treatment often includes monitoring of various physiological parameters. Conventionally, such monitoring begins by attaching sensors to several locations on a patient's body. The sensors transmit signals to one or more devices, which in turn determine the values of subject parameters based on the signals. In this regard, a particular parameter value may be determined based on a signal received from one or more of the attached sensors.
Most conventional monitoring devices include alarm functions. Generally, a device issues an audible and/or visual alarm after determining that a particular parameter value has fallen outside a specified range. This arrangement presents numerous difficulties. First, a monitoring device may issue an alarm in a case that an associated sensor detaches from the patient or in case of other non-emergency situations. Several monitoring devices are often used to monitor a single patient, with each device presenting a possibility of a false alarm. These possibilities condition caregivers to reduce their sensitivity to the alarms.
A caregiver's decision-making processes are often prolonged during critical events due to a barrage of corresponding alarms from multiple monitoring devices, some of which may be false alarms. Additionally, an alarm usually fails to provide sufficient information to a caregiver. Most patient complications are evidenced by several physiological parameters, so an alarm-triggering value of one parameter is insufficient to identify a particular complication.
In view of the foregoing, a more efficient system to process patient alarms is desired.